Feedback & Critique Workshop

© Daniel Pufe

In the Darmstadt Summer Course 2018 program, IMD continues its special focus on exploring and establishing formats for non- or at least less-hierarchical knowledge transfer in music. This topic which was first introduced at the Darmstadt Summer Course 2016, will be present in 2018 again at different levels with the aim to develop models, formats and strategies that can be continued by other academies and festivals of the ULYSSES network.

Besides open space practices and other knowledge sharing formats, one of the core topics is feedback and critique. We discovered a lack of a constructive feedback culture in the new music scene that is all the more astonishing as creation and innovation are daily business in contemporary music. Other arts – especially performance, theatre and dance – have been developing feedback strategies for years, but in contemporary music (composition/interpretation) the topic is not well reflected so far.

Together with other tutors, Heloisa Amaral offers regular Feedback Sessions to Summer Course participants. She has adapted feedback methods and strategies for music that are based on experiences of the Amsterdam Theatre School DasArts where people have worked for a long time on that issue together with the philosopher Karim Benammar in order to develop organized feedback sessions as a collective learning experience.

As a new feature of this year’s academy, some of the feedback methods are also used to moderate regular Morning Reviews where participants and Summer Course guests get an opportunity to reflect on the evening events of the festival in a public format together with some of the artists involved.

A series of lectures under the topic “Towards an Ethics of Critique” as well as the Workshop “Talking About Music” for young music publicists will also address questions of how to write and talk about new music in a way that is useful, vivid, profound, responsible and accessible.

Further information here.